Re: [dpdk-dev] [dpdk-techboard] DPDK ABI/API Stability

["Burakov, Anatoly" <anatoly.burakov@intel.com>]

On 04-Apr-19 4:51 PM, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Apr 2019 11:54:47 +0100
> Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com> wrote:
> 
>> My thoughts on the matter are:
>> 1. I think we really need to do work to start hiding more of our data
>> structures - like what Stephen's latest RFC does. This hiding should reduce
>> the scope for ABI breaks.
>> 2. Once done, I think we should commit to having an ABI break only in the
>> rarest of circumstances, and only with very large justification. I want us
>> to get to the point where DPDK releases can immediately be picked up by all
>> linux distros and rolled out because they are ABI compatible.
> 
> I would also like to propose "you get one ABI break" which means each
> API/ABI change must hide more infrastructure than the last. This is
> the "fool me once, ..." saying in API's.
> 
> For example,
> the memory rework it would have been good if the structure of mempools etc
> were hidden inside EAL and not exposed. but as usual hindsight is 20/20
> 

Mempools is not part of "memory rework" - it's a separate library built 
on top of EAL's memory subsystem :) When i talk about "memory API's", i 
mean memzone/malloc and friends, not mempool.

-- 
Thanks,
Anatoly